


Logan's Misspent Youth in Cathedral

by jmtorres



Category: Logan's Run (1976)
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-07
Updated: 2005-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-09 09:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmtorres/pseuds/jmtorres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cubs in Cathedral believed with all their hearts that when your crystal went green, that was a death sentence--and they were wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Logan's Misspent Youth in Cathedral

The reason Logan had such faith that Carousel was not death, no matter how the runners feared it, was that cubs in Cathedral believed with all their hearts that when your crystal went green, _that_ was a death sentence--and they were wrong. The runners were just the same kind of alarmists, and they were wrong too.

The cubs said green was poison, which was true enough--all the plants growing in Cathedral were inedible, and most were toxic. You could only get food from dispensers, and the dispensers stopped working when you went green. Sometimes greens tried to steal food from the younger cubs, and that was why the cubs would kill any green who wouldn't leave Cathedral like he was supposed to.

Logan had been sent to Cathedral when he was young--for what offense, he could not recall, he'd been so young. Most Sandmen had been in Cathedral as cubs. Cathedral was a place to put yellows who wouldn't behave, but it was also a way to train Sandmen. (Logan sometimes thought that maybe he was a Sandman-son, and had been sent to Cathedral just for that, not for having done anything wrong.) To survive in Cathedral, you had to know how to hide from the older cubs, and you had to learn how to work together with the ones your own age. It gave you experience that helped you find Runners later on.

The only Runners who went to Cathedral to hide were ones who hadn't been there as cubs, who had been good little Yellows raised in the city proper. The Runners who had been cubs in Cathedral knew it was no good hiding there, because the yellows would get you if the Sandmen didn't. But the Sandmen almost always did--they knew the hiding places in Cathedral, too.

Francis was two years older than Logan, and Logan had thought he'd never see him again when he had to leave Cathedral. But Francis been old enough when he'd committed his crime (vandalism on the great life clocks in the square--he'd painted the four crystals blue, resulting in a great deal of confusion and panic) that he remembered the city, and knew greens didn't die. He tried to tell Logan about the rest of the city, but it sounded so incredible that Logan didn't quite believe it. It sounded like a mythical paradise compared to the hardships of life in Cathedral. The city was as much story to the cubs as the Outside was to the people in the city.

Francis promised Logan that one day they'd see each other again, and made Logan promise to just come through the gates when it was his time and not try to stay and let the yellows kill him. Then Francis made Logan promise to _remember,_ because two years was a long time in Cathedral, longer than Francis himself had been there.

Logan promised, and when his time came, he went to the gates in his tattered yellow tunic and his flashing green crystal. Francis was waiting on the other side, wearing _black,_ of all things, and sitting in a maze car. He grinned.

"Hello, Logan," Francis said.

"Hello," said Logan. He looked back at Cathedral. It was a little hard to believe that he really wasn't dead.

"Hop in," said Francis. "I've got a job for you."

"A job?" Logan said doubtfully. "You always said no one had to work to live in the city."

"Well, you don't _have_ to," said Francis. "But it's _fun._"

**Author's Note:**

> Also archived on dreamwidth: <http://jmtorres.dreamwidth.org/677205.html>.


End file.
